Yousaf Haroon suffered a life-threatening gunshot wound to the stomach at the Food Shop near Gregory Boulevard and Cleveland Avenue. Prosecutors have charged Murad Jones, who police said confessed to the shooting during questioning.

"When are we going to have a safe city? A safe community?" said MD Alam, a friend of Haroon's.

The Food Shop, like many convenience stores in the Kansas City area, is owned and staff by immigrants from the Middle East and South Asia.

Alam said perhaps a hundred times in the last couple of years, those businesses have been targets of some sort of crime.

"We do not need to see every second day someone named Muhammed, Ilsuf or Tony get shot and killed," Alam said.

When he mentioned Tony, he was talking about Tony Singh, a father working two jobs who was fatally shot while getting ready to finish his shift at a south Kansas City convenience store.

Alam has led a push to get lawmakers to take up what he calls Tony's Bill, which would give clerks in those stores more protection. It would require convenience stores to put up bulletproof glass around the cash register areas and have at least two people on duty during late or overnight hours.

"Please, please, those elected officials, do something! If we need to sweep out, to clean out crime, let's do it," Alam said.

He said local business owners from the Middle East and South Asia wonder if they need to take their business out of Kansas City because of their fears of crime and violence. He said those owners plan to have a meeting with top Kansas City police officials.